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Section Five: Making ConnectionsFamily Literacy Instructional -
Programs such as homework initiatives, library outreach programs which make books available to children in their homes, and drop-in centres which provide early childhood experiences for young children often identify as program priorities direct literacy service to the child as well as service to their caregivers. This service to parents is understood by practitioners as one of offering literacy support to the family by providing beaming experiences for children and parents together. The role of the parent is often taken to be one of supporting in a general way the program's goals for the child's literacy development. Nevertheless more direct literacy development for parents is possible. In such programs there is a tendency to limit the amount of parental outreach or expectation for more direct parent involvement in literacy, as practitioner attention is drawn to developing child centred program activities. As practitioners, we may hope that centre-based activities will have spin-off effects at home, with parents and children using the literacy activities which they have seen modeled in the child-centred literacy program. However, it is more likely that we will have few contacts with caregivers, few expectations for specific parent participation in program activities, and limited ways of encouraging activities which families may engage in at the centre or at home. Thinking about evaluation in programs which include children allows
us to reconsider how we may extend program activities to foster direct
parental participation and thereby achieve the following family literacy
objectives (International Reading Association, 1994):
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